Grandmaster of Heavenly Charm

Wei Wuxian's first thought was that perhaps those young disciples had made a mistake in setting up the spirit-attracting flags. His creations were known to cause great calamity if used carelessly, which was why he had earlier taken pains to verify the correct method of drawing the flags. As several pairs of hands roughly dragged him outside, Wei Wuxian remained stiff, allowing himself to be pulled along, saving himself the effort of walking.

They hauled him to the east hall, which was unexpectedly bustling with activity. The crowd rivaled that of Mo Village during daytime, with servants and relatives all gathered, some still in their nightclothes and disheveled hair, their faces etched with fear. Madam Mo sat slumped in her seat, seemingly just awoken from a faint, tear stains still visible on her cheeks and fresh tears glistening in her eyes. However, the moment Wei Wuxian was dragged in, her tearful gaze transformed into a venomous glare.

On the ground lay a shrouded figure, its body covered with a white cloth, revealing only the head. Lan Sichui and the other young disciples stood around it, their expressions grave as they examined the body, conversing in hushed tones. Fragments of their conversation reached Wei Wuxian's ears:

"...discovered less than an incense stick's time ago?"

"We had just subdued the walking corpse and were heading from the west courtyard to the east when we found the body in the corridor."

The shrouded figure was none other than Mo Ziyuan. Wei Wuxian glanced at it briefly, then found himself compelled to look again.

This corpse both resembled and differed from Mo Ziyuan. While the facial features were undoubtedly those of his adopted cousin, the cheeks were deeply sunken, the eye sockets and eyeballs protruding, and the skin wrinkled and withered. Compared to the youthful Mo Ziyuan of before, this corpse appeared to have aged two decades. It was as if all blood and flesh had been drained, leaving behind a skeleton barely covered by a thin layer of skin. If the original Mo Ziyuan had been merely unattractive, his corpse was now both aged and grotesque.

As Wei Wuxian scrutinized the body, Madam Mo suddenly lunged forward, a glint of steel in her hand—she was wielding a dagger. Lan Sichui swiftly knocked it away, but before he could speak, Madam Mo shrieked at him, "My son has been brutally murdered! I must avenge him! Why are you stopping me?"

Wei Wuxian ducked behind Lan Sichui, crouching as he said, "Your son's tragic death has nothing to do with me."

Lan Sichui, who had witnessed Wei Wuxian's earlier antics in the east hall and heard various exaggerated rumors about this illegitimate son, felt sympathy for the seemingly ill young man. He couldn't help but speak up in his defense: "Madam Mo, the state of your son's corpse—with all blood and essence drained—clearly indicates he fell victim to an evil spirit. It's unlikely to be his doing."

Madam Mo's chest heaved as she retorted, "What do you know? This madman's father was a cultivator, and he must have learned all sorts of dark arts!"

Lan Sichui glanced back at the seemingly dazed Wei Wuxian and said, "Madam, you have no evidence. Perhaps we should—"

"The evidence is on my son's body!" Madam Mo pointed at the corpse on the ground. "See for yourselves! My Ziyuan's body tells us who killed him!"

Without waiting for others to act, Wei Wuxian rushed forward and yanked the white cloth off the body, revealing it from head to toe. One thing was conspicuously missing from Mo Ziyuan's corpse.

His left arm, from the shoulder down, had vanished!

Madam Mo exclaimed, "Do you see now? You all heard what this lunatic said earlier today, didn't you? He threatened that if Ziyuan touched his things again, he'd chop off Ziyuan's arm!"

After her outburst, she covered her face, sobbing, "My poor Ziyuan never touched any of that madman's belongings. Not only was he falsely accused, but he was also brutally murdered by this heartless monster..."

Heartless monster!

It had been years since Wei Wuxian had heard such an assessment of himself, and it felt oddly familiar. He pointed at himself, momentarily at a loss for words. He wasn't sure who was truly ill—himself or Madam Mo. In his youth, he had often spouted vicious threats about exterminating clans and causing rivers of blood, but most of the time, they were just empty words. If he had acted on every threat he'd made, he would have conquered the cultivation world long ago. Madam Mo wasn't truly seeking vengeance for her son; she was merely looking for someone to vent her anger upon.

Wei Wuxian, unwilling to engage further with her, thought for a moment before reaching into Mo Ziyuan's robes. After a brief search, he pulled out an object—a spirit-attracting flag.

In that instant, everything became clear to him, and he thought to himself, "You reap what you sow."

As Lan Sichui and the others saw what Wei Wuxian had retrieved from Mo Ziyuan's robes, they too understood what had transpired. Considering the day's earlier commotion, it wasn't difficult to piece together the sequence of events: Mo Ziyuan, humiliated by Mo Xuanyu's outburst, had harbored a grudge and sought revenge. When Mo Xuanyu disappeared for hours, Mo Ziyuan planned to teach him a lesson upon his return.

However, when night fell and Mo Ziyuan snuck out, he passed by the west courtyard and noticed the spirit-attracting flags on the eaves. Despite being repeatedly warned not to go out at night, stay away from the west courtyard, or touch the black flags, Mo Ziyuan assumed these were merely attempts to prevent theft of valuable talismans. Unaware of the ominous power of the spirit-attracting flags, he couldn't resist the temptation to steal one, having developed a habit of pilfering his cousin's magical items. Taking advantage of the cultivators' preoccupation with subduing the walking corpse in the west courtyard, he quietly removed one flag.

The array had employed six spirit-attracting flags, with five placed in the west courtyard to lure evil spirits using the Lan Sect disciples as bait. However, those young cultivators were protected by numerous magical artifacts. Mo Ziyuan, on the other hand, had stolen only one flag and carried no protective items. Like a predator choosing the weakest prey, the evil spirit was naturally drawn to him. Had it been just a walking corpse, a few bites wouldn't have been immediately fatal, and he might have been saved. Unfortunately, the spirit-attracting flag had inadvertently summoned something far more terrifying than a mere walking corpse. It was this unknown evil entity that had killed Mo Ziyuan and taken his left arm!

Wei Wuxian raised his wrist, noticing that the wound on his left hand had healed. It seemed the soul-sacrificing contract had credited Mo Ziyuan's death to him, albeit indirectly. After all, the spirit-attracting flags were Wei Wuxian's creation and legacy, making this an ironic twist of fate.

Madam Mo, well aware of her son's petty vices but unwilling to admit that Mo Ziyuan's death was self-inflicted, found herself both flustered and enraged. In a fit of anger, she grabbed a teacup and hurled it at Wei Wuxian's face, shrieking, "If you hadn't falsely accused him in front of everyone yesterday, he wouldn't have gone out in the middle of the night! This is all your fault, you bastard!"

Wei Wuxian, anticipating her reaction, easily dodged the projectile. Madam Mo then turned her fury on Lan Sichui, screaming, "And you! You useless lot! What good is your cultivation and evil-suppressing if you can't even protect a child! Ziyuan was only in his teens!"

The young disciples, still inexperienced and on one of their first missions, had failed to detect the unusual presence in the area and never imagined such a vicious entity lurked nearby. They had felt guilty about their oversight, but Madam Mo's indiscriminate verbal assault left them with flushed faces. Coming from noble families, they had never been treated with such disrespect. The Lan Sect's strict upbringing forbade them from retaliating against ordinary people, even verbally, so they struggled to contain their displeasure, their faces darkening with suppressed anger.

Wei Wuxian, however, couldn't stand by silently. He thought to himself, "After all these years, the Lan Sect is still like this. What's the use of all that restraint if it only leads to self-torment? Watch how it's done!"

He spat forcefully and said, "Who do you think you're yelling at? Do you really see these people as your servants? They've traveled from afar to exorcise demons and suppress evil without asking for anything in return, and this is how you repay them? How old is your son? Seventeen this year, right? Is that still a 'child'? At what age do children start understanding human speech? Weren't you repeatedly warned yesterday not to touch anything in the array or go near the west courtyard? Your son sneaks out in the middle of the night to steal, and you blame me? Blame them?"

Lan Jingyi and the others let out a sigh of relief, their faces no longer flushed with suppressed anger. Madam Mo, consumed by grief and hatred, could only think of death—not her own to join her son, but the death of everyone around her, especially those standing before her. Accustomed to relying on her husband, she pushed him, demanding, "Call everyone in! Bring them all here!"

Her husband, however, remained motionless, perhaps too shocked by the loss of his only son. Unexpectedly, he pushed her back. Madam Mo, caught off guard, fell to the ground, stunned by this unprecedented act of defiance.

In the past, her husband would have obeyed without question, even at the slightest raise in her voice. Today, he had dared to push back!

The servants, terrified by her reaction, scrambled to help. Ading, trembling, helped her to her feet. Madam Mo, clutching her chest, her voice quavering, said, "You... you... get out of here too!"

Her husband seemed not to hear. Ading exchanged several meaningful glances with Atong, who quickly moved to escort the master out. The east hall was in utter chaos. Wei Wuxian, seeing that the family had finally quieted down, prepared to continue examining the corpse. However, he had barely looked at it when another piercing scream erupted from the courtyard.

Everyone in the hall rushed outside. In the east courtyard, two figures lay convulsing on the ground. One, Atong, was still alive but collapsed. The other, lifeless, appeared to have had all flesh and blood drained, leaving behind a shriveled husk missing its left arm. The wound, devoid of blood, mirrored Mo Ziyuan's corpse exactly.

Madam Mo, having just shaken off Ading's support, caught sight of the new corpse. Her eyes widened in shock, and she finally lost all strength, fainting on the spot. Wei Wuxian, who happened to be nearby, caught her and handed her over to the rushing Ading. Glancing at his right hand, he noticed the wound there had also vanished.

Just steps away from the hall's threshold, before even leaving the east courtyard, Madam Mo's husband had met a gruesome end in mere moments. Lan Sichui, Lan Jingyi, and the others paled at the sight. Lan Sichui, the quickest to regain his composure, urgently questioned the trembling Atong, "Did you see what it was?"

Atong, too terrified to speak, could only shake his head repeatedly, his jaw locked in fear. Lan Sichui, growing increasingly anxious, instructed his fellow disciples to take Atong inside. He then turned to Lan Jingyi, asking, "Has the signal been sent?"

Lan Jingyi replied, "Yes, but if there are no senior cultivators nearby to respond, our people will take at least half an hour to arrive. What should we do now? We don't even know what we're dealing with."

They knew they couldn't leave—abandoning others in the face of evil spirits would not only disgrace their sect but also go against their own principles. The terrified Mo family members couldn't be evacuated either, as the malevolent entity was likely hiding among them, rendering escape futile. Lan Sichui gritted his teeth and said, "We hold our ground and wait for reinforcements!"

Having sent out a distress signal, support from other cultivators would arrive soon. To avoid further complications, Wei Wuxian knew he should retreat. If the arriving cultivators didn't recognize him, it might be fine, but if someone who had crossed paths or clashed with him before showed up, the situation could become unpredictable.

However, bound by the curse, he couldn't leave Mo Village. Moreover, the entity summoned had claimed two lives in such a short span, demonstrating unprecedented ferocity. If Wei Wuxian were to abandon them now, by the time reinforcements arrived, the entire Mo Village might be littered with corpses missing their left arms, including some young disciples of the Lan Sect.

After a moment's deliberation, Wei Wuxian thought to himself, "Time for swift action."